A moving update

All our recent wanderings have been to Manchester.

I'm sure Manchester is a lovely city, but the endless driving round and round suburbia, hoping to come upon the house of our dreams is wearing very thin. The car hire company are amazed at how many miles we can do in two days.

So last week we left the children with friends overnight whilst we visited more houses and, a step towards certainty here, a school. The school was amazing: coming from the city here I was dumbfounded to be looking out past the headmaster at a field full of sheep. Now we are looking for houses within a specific catchment area. Or, clearly, the option to put a tent in the field with the sheep.

Working Mum and Her on the Hill have given good advice - thank you! Tragically, being a medic, my husband couldn't possibly live out in the Peaks as HotH suggests: emergency medicine requires us to be a lot closer to the hospital. It looks most likely that we will buy a house 'with potential' or, as the estate agent described it this morning, 'as a project'. Getting quite anxious about this too, but it may be the only way to satisfy my desires for a mansion (well, at least a spare bedroom) on our budget.

The bright side is that a night out with hubbie and without children was quite lovely. Had a meal out together (when did we last do that?) then retired to our B&B. This turned out to be an old lady's spare room in the attic and the 'double' room would traditionally be called a twin. It was like going back in time, seeing the dinner service of our parents or grandparents on her kitchen table. Having got over the quaintness of all this, we had a lovely time!

We're getting closer to a decision. Honest! Still, going down again this week with kids in tow (we have a three week half-term - blessing or curse?) to view a few more properties and possibly find an architect! I'm not sure I signed up for all this when I first thought about marriage and children!